Wikisource:Possible copyright violations/Archives/2007-04

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in April 2007, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date.
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As user on German Wikpedia (Taxman) I just stumbled across this speech. I cannot see why a speech by a British politican, who died some 40 years ago can be GFDL. Please also have a look on your many more speeches at Portal:Speeches, because I'm not sure whether all countries have their governmental work placed in public domain. Best regards (for question plz have a look at my german user discussion page). -- Taxman 13:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Made in the House of Commons: 50 year Crown Copyright applies, so the speech is public domain (Art. 2.4 Berne Convention). This is the record from the Churchill archives. Physchim62 15:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

My own view is that speeches by Tony Blair are all under U.K. copyright, either Crown copyright for his official speeches or his personal copyright for speeches he makes, e.g., as leader of the Labour Party. There is, however, some dispute as to whether this accurately reflects their position under U.S. copyright law, and so I am not calling for deletion until this has all been sorted out. Physchim62 11:58, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

ok, as I am not active on this project I will leave this to your hands. Hope you will get suitable solutions for these problems. I just don't want anything like that fr:Wikiquote again. Thx for your attention. -- de:Benutzer:Taxman 16:23, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm unclear on what dispute you're referring to, what is the argument suggesting that British Crown Copyright applied to works by the British Prime MInister is Public Domain in the United States? Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 21:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Speeches in and of themselves are not copyrightable. They are not recorded in any tangible form and thus fail one of the tests for copyrightibility. However an audio or video recording of a speech, a transcription of a speech or the notes which a speech is made from are copyrightable. They are recorded in a tangible form and that is the crucial difference. David Newton 00:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

This is true, but once the speech has been "fixed" in a tangiable form it is subject to copyright in the same way as any other literary work. The tangiable fixations of speeches have been registered for copyright in the U.S.—see I have a Dream for one example. Physchim62 01:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Keep. When the speech was made while on duty, any copyright would have expired since 1991.--Jusjih 17:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Th author died in 2007. Some pages claim My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody. However we will need some sort of OTRS ticket to confirm this.

The website www.ugkrishnamurti.net has a book collection with several, if not all, works by this author. The site claims to be maintained by people who know him. There you will find that citation, which is a sign that appears in at least two books. It is an expression of the author's own philosophy, in which, as you can read in the books, he claims that his thoughts, as his feelings and experiences, are not his to own, they are not original.

I don't know if there is a way to prove this for the purpose of copyright issues, on this site.

I usually err on the side of extreme caution with copyright. I know he made this claim, but I wonder if legally it holds up. He has books published, so I wonder if the publisher has any claim to the copyright or if some other third party does. I vote for delete.—Zhaladshar(Talk) 19:15, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd vote for keep, there is a very clear release of all relevant rights by the author himself - why should only corporate releases be counted? You consider my writing to be released simply because there's a small disclaimer above the "submit" button. If I upload a personal photo of the Pope to WikiCommons as "Public Domain", and then later try to remove it because I want to sell it...I'll get told that I can't, I already explicitly released it into the public domain. This is no different, except the author hasn't even indicated a desire to "un-release" it, so there's even less reason to consider deleting the works. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 16:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That is strange. I know that U.G., the author of the books, didn't sell his work or made money out of them. How could a publisher overcome the will of the author in terms of the rights of the author's own work. Isn't anyone free to release whatever one wants into public domain? That was the will of U.G., no doubt about it.

Because the author must have agreed to various things in a legal contract for a publisher to put out the money to print and promote the books (i.e. that he would not allow other to simply give away that same book). Of course people may write things and give away the copyrights, however if that is the case the work will not be acceptable for inclusion at Wikisource. Maybe some of these works should rather be at WS:DEL instead of here, but in any case I do believe they will need to be deleted from Wikisource.--BirgitteSB 15:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

From what I read, the author was neither for the publishing of the book nor he was against it. He saw no purpose in writing the books, as he thought it would not bring anything to anyone, but he didn't oppose to it. Perhaps, if you are interested, you can find something in www.ugkrishnamurti.net I don’t know anything about publishing and copyrights.

reluctantly, I would suggest delete, for two reasons.

There are many ways for a work to enter the public domain in the U.S. To name just a few: (1) published before 1923 (covered by Template:PD-1923), (2) published between 1923 and 1964, but not renewed for a second term (covered by Template:PD-US-no-renewal), (3) published before 1 March 1989 (when the U.S. joined the Berne Convention) without a valid copyright notice (covered by Template:PD-US-no-notice), or (4) expressly dedicated to the public domain by the author using, for example, a license like this. The license templates page mentions a {{PD-self}} template for self-dedications to the public domain, but it does not appear that any work actually hosted on Wikisource uses this template. There may be a good reason for that: under Section 203 of the Copyright Act, public domain dedications may (emphasis on may; there is little if any precedent clearly on point) be revoked by the author or the author's heirs in the future. This possibility is discussed at Wikipedia's article on the public domain. No matter whether a work has been dedicated to the public domain by the author in the U.S., there is no guarantee that it will remain so in the future (unlike works in categories (1), (2), and (3) above, which are in the public domain forever in the U.S.).

The web page at www.ugkrishnamurti.net indicates that some of the author's works posted here were published in India, not the U.S. I am not sure whether Indian copyright law recognizes a public domain dedication. The safer course is to delete the work. —Tarmstro99 19:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

But isn't the publisher agreeing with the terms of the author in the moment it prints in the book the sign "has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute"? That quote is not just part of his philosophy and is not part of the content of the book. It is a sign that appears in one of the first pages, like a "warning". Besides the fact that the author himself has announce that all of his work has no copyright, I think that at least those books that have that sign should not be questionable.

Still, I believe we should keep all of the artciles, in respect to the will of the author. I vote for keep89.155.14.81 13:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Although a dedication to the public domain may not be recognized in some jurisdictions, most (or at least the United States) do recognize waivers or transfers of rights. In the case at hand, the author (presumably the copyright holder) waives all rights, which is equivalent to releasing the works under a license that waives all rights. Such licenses (including Creative Commons licenses) have never been tried in court, so such a release is no less uncertain than the entirety of our freely licensed content. This is the reason {{PD-release}} on Commons states the release in two ways (as this author has): "I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."

Written by Robert Frost, a United States citizen who died in 1963. The copyright is valid under US law until authors death +70 years, which would make this work public domain only in year 2033. Jerry 04:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Keep. Under Section 302 of the U.S. Copyright Act, the rule that copyright lasts for the author’s life plus 70 years applies only to works created on or after January 1, 1978. For earlier published works, the relevant provision of the statute is not Section 302 but Section 304, which creates an initial 28-year term of copyright that can then be renewed for an extended second term (initially 28 years; today it’s longer, but the extensions don’t apply to The Road Not Taken). According to Wikipedia, The Road Not Taken was first published in the U.S. in 1916. The work therefore passed into the public domain in this country not later than 1972 (=1916+28+28) and has been public domain ever since. —Tarmstro99 13:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Not a problem, you were quite right to flag the possible violation. There are actually a lot of public domain works on Wikisource that are tagged {{PD-old-70}} even though they were published in the U.S. before 1/1/1978 (and the life-plus-70 framework therefore doesn’t apply to them). At some point I will probably start going through them and giving them the correct tag (most likely {{PD-1923}}, but there will almost certainly be some {{copyvio}}s in the mix as well—works where the author died 70+ years ago but are still under copyright in the U.S.). —Tarmstro99 14:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I will go ahead and do some based on your and Pathoschild's explanations. 216.165.199.50 21:23, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Copyright should logicaly be in the hands of the Discovery Institute.Geni 16:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

*Keep. Has the Discovery Institute claimed copyright infringement? As detailed at scienceblogs [5] the Discovery Institute has until just recently denied the document was even theirs. They have since admited it came from their offices but have never asserted any copyright claim. Because of the ID controversy the document has been widely circulated within various press articles, such as this one in Seattle Weekly: [6] I don't think the situation here is as simple as a default copyright reached by logic. FeloniousMonk 17:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Why does it being a public record make it public domain? It was not produced by the state. --Benn Newman(AMDG) 00:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Once a document is entered into evidence it becomes part of the public record, freely available to anyone. Presenting documents contained in the public record to illustrate an article discussing the document in question qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. If you are not familiar with the concept of public record in relation to fair use, perhaps you would reconsider your opinion below? FeloniousMonk 01:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This would seem to be one of those cases where guidance from Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel office would be helpful. I'll ask Brad Patrick for clarification on the legality of uploading documents entered into the public record as trial evidence to here. That should settle the issue, agreed? FeloniousMonk 01:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Delete. They do not have to assert copyright for them to have it. If it had not come from their office, whomever created it would be the copyright holder. (If you'd like, you may ask them if they would release it into the public domain or release it under the GNU Free Documentation License or compatible license.) If it is free, it should at Wikimedia Commons, not here. --Benn Newman(AMDG) 17:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Keep. Not only was this document entered into evidence in its entirety at the Kitzmiller trial, the Seattle Times has printed the entire document as news. It is a brief document that is properly classified as news in the public domain with broad relevance to public policy, and not a copyrighted work. Although it is true that authors and/or publishers are not required to signal their intent to claim copyright by posting a copyright notice on works published after March, 1989, it is nonetheless required to have sent two copies to the Library of Congress within three months of publication in order to have properly claimed copyright. Since the issuing organization and/or authors originally intended to keep this document secret (having been leaked to the public by an insider), plainly they did not seek to assert copyright protection. Nor is there any author attribution displayed on the document. Nor is there a financial transaction involved that could be argued to be profiting at their expense. Nor is there any evidence that they have a proprietary interest that outweighs First Amendment issues-- indeed the document deals with issues asserting their intent to affect public policy. Therefore, lacking a court injunction preventing further dissemination of this document, it is in the public domain and is fair game for free public display. ... Kenosis 00:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikisource is not the news media; its relevance to public policy is not relevant to its copyright status. While registration of copyright may be make it easier to take action against infringes, it is by no means required; there is no need to assert copyright in order to have it. Both unpublished and/or anonymous works may be protected by copyright. The rest of what you say sounds like reasons why it might be able to be used under fair use, but that is not allowed under Wikisource's copyright policy. To be included in Wikisource, it must not only allow reproductions, but derivatives. --Benn Newman(AMDG) 00:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use is not the primary issue, but only one of many reasons this brief document is in the public domain. The primary issue is that it is not copyrighted because neither its author(s) nor its publisher has asserted copyright protection by submitting two copies to the Library of Congress as required for works published after March 1989. Nor have they asserted intent to copyright by displaying a copyright notice. Additionally, it is a document that expresses a past strategy that was intended to affect public policy. Therefore, lacking a court order prohibiting its dissemination on some other grounds, it's in the public domain. ... Kenosis 00:58, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention that it's fair use because it is public record, entered as evidence in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania case number 04cv2688, Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. Presenting documents contained in the public record to illustrate an article discussing the document in question qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. FeloniousMonk 01:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

No one said anything about required registration. Registration has never been required for copyright protection. ... Kenosis 01:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you did: "it is nonetheless required to have sent two copies to the Library of Congress within three months of publication in order to have properly claimed copyright." There is no need to assert copyright for it to exist for a work. --Benn Newman(AMDG)

That is not registration. It is required submission of two copies to the Library of Congress, a separate requirement for works published in the US after March 1989. But, additionally, this ten page document was exhibit P-516 in the Kitzmiller v. Dover (M.D.Pa, 2005) trial. And, it has already been reprinted, in full, without any presumption of a need for permission from its issuer, in at least one major newspaper, the Seattle Times. ... Kenosis 01:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Come to think of it, never mind. Apparently a third-party host is now being used for this document, and only its cover is displayed in the relevant WP article. Thanks for your consideration of the issues. ... Kenosis 01:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I'd just like to point out that the fact that a document is part of the public record has no bearing at all on its copyright status. Citizens may have the right to access a large part of the public records, but that right to access doesn't give them the right to redistribute or republish copyrighted works that just happen to be in the public record. See e.g. Davis, K.: Guidance Regarding the Use of Copyrighted Material Under the Access to Public Records Act, Public Access Counselor, U.S. State of Indiana, October 31, 2005. Copyright on a work is not lost when the work is included in the public record. "Publicly available" does not equal "public domain". Lupo 13:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I am copying w:User:Lupo's opinion here from his talk page at en.WP where I asked to explain the Russian/Soviet copyright isues to me reagarding this translator.

I have made some notes at Talk:What Is Soviet Power?. I don't have details on actual translation in question, but I am very unsure of the Soviet copyright issues in general. Is there any chance this would be PD if it were from the 50's or 60's puvlish in english from Moscow? If so I will do more research but if not it probably better not to waste the time and just delete it.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 04:55, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Lenin's works (including his speeches) are certainly PD in the original. Speeches were copyrightable works in the USSR, but in practice, the copyright was unenforceable because (a) of "the difficulty of securing a water-tight proof in court" and (b) a "free use" provision (akin to our "fair use"/"fair dealing") that allowed the publication of reports on speeches "if such reports transmit the essence of the work in an independent form, or, if necessary, quote from the original" and "printing reports in periodicals of speeches made in public meetings". (Quoted from: Levitsky, S. L.: Introduction to Soviet Copyright Law, Law in Eastern Europe, No. 8; A.W. Sythoff, Leiden 1964; p. 105. No ISBN. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 58-33118.) Furthermore, Lenin died in 1924; so his works are PD even under the modern Russian copyright law. However, the translator George H. Hanna had a copyright on his translations, under Soviet law and also under Russian law. (Reference: Levitsky, p. 102) He appears to have died post-1954 (I've found publications of him as late as 1965; according to [9] he seems to have died before 1977), so his works would be still copyrighted today. I don't know where this Mr. Hanna lived. But since his works were first published in Moscow by the Foreign Language Publishing House, he got a copyright in the Soviet Union even if he should have lived and worked abroad. Soviet law has always granted copyright to works that were first published in the USSR and that existed in objective form on the territory of the USSR regardless of the nationality of the author. (Reference: Newcity, M. A.: Copyright Law in the Soviet Union, Praeger Publishers, New York 1978; p. 22. ISBN 0-275-56450-9.) I think marxists.org is mistaken to label these publications as PD—they still operate under a pre-1973 regime. HTH, Lupo 12:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I also want to add these are rather short works available on ru.WS, so perhaps we will be able to find up a translator willing to release a new version under the GFDL. --BirgitteSB 18:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted. Asking a Russian speaker to do a GFDL translation might be our best course of action for these speeches.—Zhaladshar(Talk) 20:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't find any indication that these are public domain stories. He did most of his writing in America, so everything else of his is PD.—Zhaladshar(Talk) 22:35, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

1929, 1945, 1924 respectively, all fall outside the established "pre-1923" era - however it may be a case of no copyright renewal on the texts. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 22:31, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Been two months and no one has done the research. If anything is found they can be restored.--BirgitteSB 14:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

These chapters, reprinted as Allah is God: Who is that Mystery God?, are taken from The Message To The Blackman in America by Elijah Muhammad (1897-1975). This book is currently sold through Amazon, and is probably copyrighted. —{admin} Pathoschild 21:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

What was the original date of publication? It may be old enough to be in the public domain. —Psychonaut 22:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Published in 1932 and the British author died in 1963--BirgitteSB 00:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

delete - definitely still produced under copyright, cannot be hosted. I do notice that w:Crome Yellow however, was published in 1921 - so would be a nice addition. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 01:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The Calypsos was written as part of a religion that Vonnegut invented for his book, it is like including Tolkienite "history" where it was clearly written by the author of the books to serve as creative background. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 04:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"The Committee has considered the question of publication, in Congressional hearings and documents, of copyrighted material. Where the length of the work or excerpt published and the number of copies authorized are reasonable under the circumstances, and the work itself is directly relevant to a matter of legitimate legislative concern, the Committee believes that the publication would constitute fair use."

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this one. It's a Philippinian short story by Paz Márquez-Benítez published in 1925. Back then, the Philippines were a US colony. There aren't any renewal records in the Rutgers database (I haven't checked other sources, though). On the other hand, the Philippines are independent since 1946, the author seems to have died in 1983 and the Philippines have a life+50 copyright term. Does anyone know more about the status of Philippinian works published back in colonial times?--GrafZahl 09:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Delete No information, but given the subject died in 1983, almost any legal system would cold them copyright. The legal niceties may be interesting, but our decision is clear.--Doc glasgow 18:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Delete What he said. Ask again in 2033 ?? ++Lar: t/c 18:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Civil Peace is a short story by Chinua Achebe. It is about the effects of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) on the people, and the "civil peace" that followed.— Excerpted from Civil Peace on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.'

This is unlikely to be free content no mention of license on page--BirgitteSB 19:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Delete living author, no sign of release.--Doc glasgow 18:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

A very recently written book. No indication it isn't copyrighted.—Zhaladshar(Talk) 19:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Delete, doesn't even look to be the book's text, just an excerpt and some opinions about the book. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 18:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Clearly too recent to be public domain. Page content also includes advertisement/solicitation to purchase (which might make it deletable under WS:WWI even if it was non-infringing). —Tarmstro99 16:34, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Appears to be a recent (not historical) photograph or screen capture. Nothing to indicate that it has been placed into the public domain or released under a GFDL-compatible license. —Tarmstro99 20:31, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

First published 1932. Stanford Copyright renewal database shows a renewal filed in 1959. Work was in its second term of copyright as of 1/1/1978, so under section 304 of the Copyright Act, the second term will last for 67 years, until 2026. —Tarmstro99 18:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Speedily Deleted as it has already been deleted through this process in the past.--BirgitteSB 18:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I will admit I am quite hazy on copyright in regards to images. However if this image cannot be very old and there is not reason given for a lack of copyright.--<--BirgitteSB 03:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

He looks about 20 in that image, which would put it at the turn of the century, the only way it would be a post-1923 image is if he is supposed to be older than 35, which doesn't seem very likely. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 18:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

That is assuming it was published pre-1923. Existing prior to 1923 is not enough. We seldom have to deal with this here because texts are usually slated for publication before they are finished. Pictures are often made for private use and then later published.--BirgitteSB 21:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

From the talk page: Yes, I'm the translator of the Adelaide version of 'RUR'. Anyone's free to use it if they're not making money out of it, but I do insist it be not edited - if someone makes a mess of it I might get the blame. It can be found on my website in a slightly different format which mighgt suit Wikisource better: www.finitesite.com/dandelion/webtrans.html David Wyllie Unfortunately this release will not be compatible with WS:COPY--BirgitteSB 15:05, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed:Deleted until compatibility confirmed

Appears to be a work published within the last decade by a still-living author. Nothing to indicate that it has been placed into the public domain or released under a GFDL-compatible license. —Tarmstro99 17:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I got permission from Alfred, can I forward the email to anyone? also it is available to the public on his website (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont 18:16, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

He gave me permission to publish it here though, would you like his email address to confirm it is ok to publish it here? I can even forward the email conversation me and him had if that works (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont 18:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Oky doky, I have asked him vial email tonight, he should respond by tomorrow, I didnt know he had to remove the copyright sign so I think he may do it now (probably did not occur to him hehe) ... please just be patient give it a day he will respond and fix it (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont 02:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

And yes I will keep you up-to-date if anything happens (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont 02:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, it's not "all done". Tarmstro99 asked if the author "retained sufficient rights to relinquish them". Which means you have to disclose the name of the original publisher and demonstrate that they don't still have the copyright. 216.165.199.50 00:50, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Based on the nature of the content, it seems possible that it was either self-published or issued by a vanity press that did not (as commercial publishers generally do) insist upon assignment of the copyright in the work. If that’s the case, and the original author retained copyright, then presumably there would not be a copyvio problem (although self-published or vanity press works might meet the criteria of WS:WWI, so even in that case it’s not clear to me that this work can be hosted here). I agree, of course, that the burden remains on the original poster to produce satisfactory documentation concerning the work’s copyright status. —Tarmstro99 01:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I asked Alfred and he told me: It was written for a public journal in the field (UFO Magazine) and was originally published in UFO Magazine, Vol 15, No. 10 December-January 2001.[12] .... let me know if this helps out and please if you need to I can give you his email so you can talk to him personally (if that helps at all) (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont · email 21:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've contacted UFO Magazine, with a copy to the Wikimedia permissions archive, regarding the copyright status of submitted contributions. If the authors retain copyright, I will contact the author to arrange a more explicit release. Thanks. —{admin} Pathoschild 19:45:49, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

He also informed me that: "I have just been informed by Dr. Michael Salla, Editor, that the article in its Public Domain format will be published in the July 2007 issue of the Journal of Exopolitics http://www.exopoliticsjournal.com" ... if this helps at all also (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont · email 20:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I've deleted the work until compatibility can be confirmed. This will require a specific copyright release such as the following:

"I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."

Although the blog's authenticity is arguable, this problem resolves itself if it is published in the Journal of Exopolitics with a clear copyright release as shown above. —{admin} Pathoschild 01:31:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

can you copy the source into my talk page so that when they release it, I can just copy and paste it back in? (:O) -Nima Baghaeitalk · cont · email 14:31, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

When the work is released, we can simply undelete it with the full edit history. :) —{admin} Pathoschild 19:11:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Appears to be a work published in 1986 by a still-living author. Nothing to indicate that it has been placed into the public domain or released under a GFDL-compatible license. —Tarmstro99 14:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

User Andrew 2007 added the following note to my talk page which bears on the issue here: “Hi, you added the copyvio tag on the Holocaust: the Jewish tragedy book. However, I have explained that I have written to Martin Gilbert and obtained his permission to publish it on Wikisource.--Andrew 2007 15:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)” —Tarmstro99 15:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

User Andrew 2007 then added the following note to my talk page which bears on the issue here: “Please, I have just explained that I have obtained copyright permission from the author. And I hope once you realise it is not a copyvio, that I will be able to retrieve the hours of typing I had to do to put the book up there--Andrew 2007 15:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)”. I have requested that further discussion be posted to this page rather than to my talk page. —Tarmstro99 15:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

We need more than just permission to host this work here. The author must release it under a free license or into the public domain. And a record of it must be sent to Permissions so that we have proof of the licensure/release in case we get in trouble down the road.—Zhaladshar(Talk) 17:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

That release was received from a free Hotmail account, so we cannot accept it (OTRS ticket#2007041510015614). I've asked them to confirm from a verifiable source, like an address associated with the official website, but I would not hold my breath— the book in question is still published commercially. —{admin} Pathoschild 04:33:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Last year, I remember a protracted discussion about a contributor who had contacted or had been unable to contact an author in a third-world nation with the contributor wanting to present the author's work here, but Wikisource not allowing him because the author hadn't personally released the work.

I see some resemblance of that situation to the religious poem "A Beautiful Prayer" by w:Joanne Gobure. According to the Wikipedia article about the author, the poem has been passed around through Christian internet forums and websites. Also, the history page says the contributor of this work, 62.203.87.108 has made the sole statement of release as "Author has agreed". But I doubt those conditions are adequate to release the work if the principles behind the precedent set by that discussion that I happened to see are followed. 216.165.199.50 15:42, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

These translations (including Nobel Lecture Physics 1902) are copyrighted after 1963 by the Elsevier Publishing company. It was republished by the World Scientific Publishing Company within 28 years, so the copyright was almost certainly renewed. 216.165.199.50 01:23, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Keep, the site in question says that the Nobel organization gave publishers the right to publish lectures from 1900-1970, though the publishers likely already had the "right" to publish the pre-1923 works...it doesn't say anything specific about copyright of the pre-1923 works, and I highly doubt they hold it. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 01:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikisource requires the freedom to view, use, distribute, modify, and exploit the text by anyone, in any form, and for any purpose (including commercial exploitation) without exception and without limitation (except as explicitly allowed). Permission for one organization (not including Wikisource) to publish is insufficient. In this case, the point is probably moot, though— they seem to be published in the US before 1923, so PD-1923 applies. —{admin} Pathoschild 02:54:55, 09 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to guess you're misinterpreting me, I didn't say anything about the fact they gave a publisher rights meant we had rights, I said that them giving the publishers rights to publish an anthology, didn't mean the first half of the anthology wasn't PD anyways. Sherurcij(talk) (λεμα σαβαχθανει) 04:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the Wikisource pages, they seem to be mostly, if not all, translations into English. The Nobel Foundation webpage I referenced said that the publisher, Elsevier, was "responsible" for the translations (and presumably held the copyright for them as the Nobel Foundation held the rights to the speeches in the original languages), and that they did not begin publishing the translations until 1964. 216.165.199.50 04:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a translation copyvio. The source of translation is given as Jack Edwards, Banzi you Bastards, Souviner Press, (paperback 1994), ISBN 0-285-63027-X, Page 260--BirgitteSB 19:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a copyvio (the reason I hadn't added it previously) "first published in the February 1960 issue of Caltech's Engineering and Science, which owns the copyright. It has been made available on the web at http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html with their kind permission." - Made available to zyvex.com, but not to us. AllanHainey 12:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)